Five years ago, we told you about the marvelous documentary, ‘Michael Des Barres: Who Do You Want Me to Be’. At the time, the doc could only be seen on the film festival circuit, but recently it’s been made available on streaming platforms for the first time. As my last viewing had been years ago, I recently watched it anew via Amazon Prime. I was reminded that director J. Elvis Weinstein did an incredible job presenting Michael’s truly amazing life, and the film was a joy to see again.
Below is a slightly revised version of our 2015 post concerning ‘Michael Des Barres: Who Do You Want Me to Be?’.
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Musician/actor/satellite radio DJ Michael Des Barres has worn many hats over his decades-long career. As a vocalist, he’s fronted such acts as the Power Station, filling in for Robert Palmer on their lone US tour (with a high-profile appearance at Live Aid), and the highly underrated Somebody up There Likes Me, a neglected LP that deserved better. His biggest success (in the form of royalties) has been as songwriter, having co-penned “Obsession,” a worldwide hit for ‘80s synth-pop act Animotion. In addition, he’s a talented character actor, best known for his recurring role as TV villain Murdoc on MacGyver. His versatility is acknowledged in the title of the fabulous documentary, Michael Des Barres: Who Do You Want Me to Be?. Dangerous Minds got in touch with the director of the film, J. Elvis Weinstein, and asked him some questions via email.
How did you come to know Michael’s work?:
J. Elvis Weinstein: The first time I came to know Michael as a musician was when he joined the Power Station, but I recognized him from TV roles at the time. I was a TV junkie as a kid. He lived in my head as a trivia question for many years. I’d always notice him in TV and movie roles.
The many faces of Murdoc.
How and when did you approach Michael about making a documentary about him? Was he open to the idea or did it take some convincing?:
J. Elvis Weinstein: We met several years ago working on a TV series, me a as writer/producer, he as a cast member. We spoke about writing a book and even did some interviews at the time, but it never materialized. Then a few years ago, we ended up guests on the same radio show and I mentioned we should have done a documentary instead of a book. There was instant agreement; we were shooting within three weeks.
What drove you to make the documentary?:
J. Elvis Weinstein: I knew that there was a great story to be told and that there were things I could learn for myself from telling it.
Michael appears open and frank during the interview segments in the film. Were you surprised by anything he told you? One of the things I learned from watching the film is that Silverhead was really Michael’s project and the other members were hired guns—I never knew!:
J. Elvis Weinstein: Michael was very generous in his willingness to examine and re-examine his life as honestly as possible through this process. I think he realized very early on that I wasn’t striving for a sensationalistic telling of the story but rather a very human one.
As for surprises, I don’t have any specific ones that jump out. While Silverhead were hired musicians, they quickly became a very collaborative and tightly knit band. Michael was very much the leader, but the sound evolved from the players.
A fan shows Michael some love during a Silverhead gig, 1974.
I also learned that Michael and his ex-wife Pamela (Miss Pamela of the GTO’s) met on the set of a movie (the still unreleased Arizona Slim). It’s really interesting to see some of their first interactions captured on film. What do you make of their relationship, then and now?:
J. Elvis Weinstein: I think the thing that is the coolest about them is the relationship they’ve cultivated since splitting as a couple. The respect, warmth, and love they maintain for one another as friends and parents of a great son is a lovely example for everyone.
If you are a big “rock” fan of a certain age—and American—you almost certainly grew up reading CREEM magazine. I sure did. I loved CREEM. The magazine was one of the first indications to my young mind that there was a much bigger, much badder and much cooler world outside of my dingy hometown. I read every issue until I memorized the articles. It informed my foundational musical tastes more than any other influence, and by some margin. Even the way I write.
The very first time I bought CREEM was the March 1975 Lou Reed cover. I spotted it in a downmarket hillbilly grocery store in Wheeling, WV. It looked weird and interesting. Certainly it stood out on the newstand of the era. I was a nine-year-old kid who’d only recently moved on from Planet of the Apes and James Bond movies after hearing “Space Oddity” on AM radio late one night and having my mind completely blown. I knew there was some connection between David Bowie and Lou Reed, but that was about it. What made me decide to spend my weekly $1 allowance on the magazine was the title the author, Lester Bangs, had given that cover story: “Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves (or how I slugged it out with Lou Reed and stayed awake).” I found this very intriguing and mysterious. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. What’s a death dwarf? And why was Lou Reed a famous one?
That legendary encounter between Reed and Bangs is today something studied at universities, an iconic bit of rock lore and a classic piece of gonzo journalism. It had a tremendous hold on my not-so-innocent young imagination. It might have been the first thing I’d ever read that made drugs seem really cool. It also made me want to talk—and write—just like Lester Bangs. As a literary stylist I put him on the same level as Kurt Vonnegut, that’s how much I liked what he did. Plus Bangs had tremendous taste in music. If he championed a group or performer, I had to hear it, even if that meant—in the case of the Velvet Underground or the Stooges—doing yard work for my parents and neighbors until I could save up enough money to buy German imports via Moby Disc, an LA-based record store that advertised their mail-order business in CREEM. (My mother had to get money orders from the post office for me to do this. It would take four to six weeks to get the album, but if you were in a rural area, this was your only option back then. If anything it goes to show the lengths someone would go to purchase as-yet-unheard music that Bangs had rhapsodized about. His prose was so good and evocative that I just knew—I was sure of it—that if he was enthusiastic about something, I was no doubt going to love it, too. Lester never let me down, not ever, not once.)
I discovered so many things via CREEM: Obviously Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, Hawkwind, Kraftwerk, Patti Smith, MC5, the New York Dolls, Ramones, Sex Pistols, the Clash. Yeah, CREEM really warped me, but in a good way. Had I not found it when I did, who knows, I might have gone on to become a respectable adult.
It should come as no surprise then, reader, that I heartily enjoyed the new documentary, CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine. The briskly-paced, well art-directed film was produced by JJ Kramer—son of CREEM publisher Barry Kramer—and directed by Scott Crawford, who made 2014’s Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington DC, 1980-90. It’s a real family affair—they had access to everything—but not in a way that pulls any punches about some of the complex personalities involved. You get the viewpoint of many of the insiders who were actually there (including Dave Marsh, Greil Marcus and co-producer Jaan Uhelszki) and several notables who weren’t, but who were greatly influenced by the gang of misfits who produced the magazine (Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers tells the charming tale of realizing that CREEM had moved their offices to his Michigan hometown and riding his bike over there only to see Alice-fucking-Cooper on his way out the front door!)
This is a really great time capsule pop culture piece and a film that needed to be made just for history’s sake, but it’s not merely a nostalgia stroll for old men. A young person watching this doc, especially in the context of what’s happening globally, sees the birth of a scene and how it was the sheer force of Barry Kramer’s personality that initially birthed it, but also how CREEM became this strange attractor of such bright-burning talent. If you read between lines (of speed, coke or “green”—some of you will hear that dog whistle) the takeaway, dear young people of 2020 is that if you want your own scene, you gotta start it yourself.
An alternate image for Alice Cooper’s album ‘Killer.’ This image was also used for a calendar that came along with the record.
In the May 6th, 1972 issue of Billboard, there’s an amusing story about how a controversial poster of Alice Cooper (pictured above) ended up plastered on a “staff only” door in the White House during Richard Nixon’s administration. Allegedly, someone at Warner Bros., Cooper’s label at the time, had a pal (described as a “semi-longhaired fellow”) who worked at the White House. The W.H. staffer’s rocker friend would send him care packages full of records and other Warner-related stuff including a poster of Alice Cooper hanging from a noose covered in fake blood. The image was an alternate for Cooper’s 1971 album Killer and also appeared on a nifty Alice Cooper calendar for 1972, included in the record. The staffer then took the poster and stuck it on a door at the end of a “staff only” corridor in the W.H., presumably until it was discovered and burned by one of Tricky Dick’s dicks.
Did this really happen? One can only hope, as Bob Regehr, one of Warner’s greatest assets in the 70s and 80s, was Cooper’s champion and likely had everything to do with the circulation of this fantastic piece of folklore. Regehr was instrumental in signing acts like Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, and Laurie Anderson. Back in the day, Cooper had Regehr in the first spot in his Rolodex, and for their next act to keep Killer on everyone’s mind, they devised a plan to throw an elaborate party in Cooper’s honor. And when I say “elaborate,” I really mean “deranged,” which makes more sense since this was 1971 and Alice Cooper was involved.
But before we get to the party to end all parties, there’s a little twist as to why the party was dubbed “The Coming Out Party for Miss Alice Cooper.” According to another Warner executive, Stan Cornyn, he was part of a conversation about Killer with Joel Friedman, Warner’s head of distribution for the U.S., and Regehr, who was heading up Warner’s Artist Relations. When Cornyn heard Friedman say, “Alice Cooper! Her record is doing great!” he and Regehr dreamed up the idea of Cooper “coming out” to the world during a star-studded, debaucherous party. And that’s precisely what happened—because it ain’t a real party until the gorilla suit rented for the occasion goes missing during the festivities, never to be seen again.
Held at The Ambassador Hotel, the hotel staff did not know any of the details behind the “coming out” party to be held in their Venetian ballroom. Here’s the wording on the invitation:
“You and a guest are cordially invited to attend the summer season debut of Alice Cooper, to be held at the Venetian Room, Ambassador Hotel, 3400 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, the evening of Wednesday, July 14th, 8:30 PM to midnight. Formal dress or equivalent costume is requested, but hardly mandatory.”
The details of the party were left to Dennis Lopez who had plenty of experience throwing unforgettable bashes all over San Francisco for legendary drag troupe The Cockettes. Cooper was known to spend time with the Cockettes whenever he came through S.F., as Cooper dug their “gender fuck” vibe, and likewise, the Cockettes dug Cooper’s over-the-top showmanship. Advertised as a “formal dress” kind of ball, many guests did arrive dressed to the nines. Inside the Venetian Room, an orchestra was in full swing. After guests were greeted by a Cockette dressed in a gorilla suit, more Cockettes (many with beards, beaded gowns, and headdresses) threw red roses as approximately 500 party goers entered, including Randy Newman, various Beach Boys, Gordon Lightfoot, Donovan, and Cynthia Plaster Caster. Because it’s not a fucking party until someone sticks their dick in a plaster mold. Other members of the Cockettes were dressed as cigarette girls offering up cigars, cigarettes, and Vaseline. In addition to the orchestra, Elsie May, aka T.V. Mama (a former backup singer for James Brown), and her “stoned-freak out soul band” ran through a few numbers before T.V. Mama (a lady of “ample” proportions) stripped down to her undies and performed topless. But what about the guest of honor, Alice Cooper?
The Mental Experience sub label of Lleida, Spain-based Guerssen Records has a knack for finding some seriously outré stuff. They take long forgotten—and some never recalled—material from the 1960s, 70s and 80s and give it new life for adventuresome listeners who are insatiable for something “new” to listen to. The label’s oddball connoisseurship—and the lengths they go to to uncover this stuff—exceeds what most reissue units dabble in. Their latest project is Clear Memory by Bomis Prendin—the name of a member, and of the band, like Alice Cooper—originally released in 1984 on 50 handmade cassettes.
Bomis Prendin’s Clear Memory is the sort of group/artist/album one used to find out about on the late Mutant Sounds blog. Or perhaps the infamous Nurse With Wound list, which they’re on. It’s experimental and it’s very, very obscure. Bomis Prendin describes themselves as “the band that put the harm in harmony, and the odious in melodious” and they’ve been at it—continuously at it—since the late 1970s, some of them playing together before that. The Washington, D.C. “noisicians” collective made hours and hours of weird recordings, very little that’s been released in corporeal form, although you can find a lot of their material for download on the Free Music Archive. When they did release their insane music, it was sometimes on flexi-discs, sometimes on bespoke cassettes or CD-Rs.
The Bomis Prendin sound is that of homemade industrial-noise-psych-pop-experimental. It’s quite striking. The press materials compare them to Faust, Cabaret Voltaire, Chrome, Olivia Tremor Control and the Residents, and yes, that seems about right. It’s worth mentioning that Bomis Prendin were contemporaries of all these bands, even if only Nurse With Wound noticed at the time.
Beyond popular longevity, the subversive nature of the classic rags-to-riches story-song has helped it achieve a unique place in country music and American culture at large, where “Fancy” is simultaneously an anthem for the country music establishment—and the very artists the industry has historically shut out.
To wit, Reba McEntire performed “Fancy” as the highlight of the 2019 Country Music Association awards show. Reba’s performance was meant to “celebrat[e] legendary women in country music,” a theme chosen to acknowledge if not explicitly address the industry’s well-documented sexism problem.
At first blush it seems strange that a proud sex worker’s anthem is one of the most cherished and enduring songs in a genre typically thought of as conservative. But take a moment to examine the tradition of country songs celebrating all manner of Saturday night sins and you realize that’s only true if “conservative” is just a euphemism for systematically denying women, queer artists, and people of color equal opportunity for mainstream success.
Reba’s CMA performance opened with The Queen Of Country primly poised in the center of an illuminated labia-shaped tunnel. The icon peeled two layers of costumes off and flung them to the floor off as she unspooled the familiar tale of a young girl whose mama encouraged her to escape poverty by selling sex with the famous line, “Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy, and they’ll be nice to you.” By the time Fancy got herself a Georgia mansion and a New York townhouse flat, Reba was stripped down to a tight red sequin pantsuit, the audience berserk with applause.
Reba McEntire performing “Fancy” at the 2019 CMA Awards
When you see that kind of performance, you really can’t blame people for thinking that “Fancy” is Reba McEntire’s song. After all, McEntire has been performing it at every single concert since releasing her version on 1990’s Rumor Has It. She wanted to record it even earlier than that but her former producer Jimmy Bowen feared it’d sully her reputation. “Oh no,’” he told her. “You don’t need to be singing about a prostitute.’”
It was not, however, the biggest song of Bobbie Gentry’s career.
It was the summer she turned 27 when Gentry flew to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama to make a record steeped in the swampy, soulful sounds she heard on New Orleans radio stations while growing up on her grandparents’ farm in Mississippi.
Just two years earlier, Gentry’s smash hit debut, Ode to Billie Joe had transformed her from an unknown musician into an international star. She followed Ode up with The Delta Sweete, a concept record about life in the South. It’s considered a masterpiece today but didn’t meet sales expectations back in 1968.
Gentry was unbothered.
“No one bought it,” she said, “But I didn’t lose any sleep over it.”
Nonetheless, Gentry proceeded to release several soft-focus radio-ready pop records that felt unduly influenced by businessmen looking for another jackpot. Then in 1969, Gentry decided to shake up the status quo and return to her roots by heading to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama to cut a record with legendary producer Rick Hall.
Gentry’s decision shook up her brand and the recording industry at large. According to Andrew Batt, who compiled and engineered The Girl from Chickasaw County: The Complete Capitol Masters, Fancy shifted the status quo by marking the first time Capitol Records worked with an outside producer.
Batt, who interviewed Hall for the essay accompanying the Bobbie box set, says Hall asked Gentry if she’d write a narrative song like “Ode in the Billie Joe” to function as the centerpiece of the record, which is otherwise stuffed with carefully curated covers.
Two weeks later, Gentry delivered “Fancy.”
“Fancy” showcased Gentry at her best—writing character-driven narrative story-songs exploring themes resonant with her own life through vivid vignettes set in the rural South of her early childhood.
Like all great literature, “Fancy” translated Gentry’s experiences and observations into fictional elements to create a uniquely compelling tale that holds a fundamental truth about humanity more than the sum of its parts. It was also deeply subversive to write a story about an unapologetic woman who seized her power through sex work in an era when women weren’t even allowed a credit card without a male co-signer.
The most obvious way Fancy’s story echoes Gentry’s life is the rags-to-riches storyline. Born into poverty and raised on her grandparents’ farm, Gentry headed to California when she was 13 years old to live with her mother and stepfather, a journey referenced in “Chickasaw County Child” but obscured in her official Capitol biography at the time in which she was presented, as Gentry dryly noted, as if she “just sort of arose out of a swamp fog and appeared on television.”
Another resonant theme between “Fancy” and Gentry’s life was the essence of the mother-daughter relationship. Gentry’s earliest teenage gigs were duo performances with her mother, a beautiful and talented woman with creative aspirations stunted by her circumstances.
Gentry’s mother encouraged her daughter’s success and in return, Bobbie fulfilled her mother’s dreams.
Bobbie at the Grammy Awards, 1970. Courtesy Andrew Batt / bobbiegentry.org.uk
In the summer of 1969, the girl raised on a Mississippi farm without electricity arrived in Alabama on a personal jet.
“Of course we all couldn’t wait for her to come in! I mean, it was Bobbie Gentry,” laughs musician Clayton Ivey, who played keys on the track in a session and was gracious enough to tell me about it. “She was pretty way ahead of her time, put it that way. Bobbie did her thing and it was a smash, man.”
Ivey says it didn’t take long to nail the take. Bobbie played “Fancy” on her parlor guitar for Rick Hall and studio musicians and they cut it to tape.
“She knew what she wanted,” says Ivey. “She did not sit in the corner. She didn’t get involved, she was involved. You know what I’m saying?”
“Fancy” only climbed to number 28 on the charts but it brought Gentry critical respect and a new persona. The innocent barefoot girl in a white tee-shirt and blue jeans presented on Ode to Billie Joe was replaced by Bobbie’s self-portrait—a grown woman in a tight red dress split clean up to her hip, elegantly poised with a cigarette, daring you to try and get one over.
The men at Capitol did indeed try just that. There’s never been an official story, but talk to enough people and you get the sense that a new slew of suits at Capitol weren’t keen to promote the opinionated lady who wanted something uncommon for a woman: credit for her work.
Bobbie Gentry’s career includes a long list of accomplishments without credit, either from a studio or in the culture at large. For example, Gentry recorded “Ode to Billie Joe” with a guy named Bobby Paris who then brought the tape to Capitol, where Jimmie Haskell’s strings were added on top during sweetening sessions. The original 45 only gave producer credit to the men involved.
When she pursued hosting a TV show in the late 1960s, American media executives advised Gentry that a woman simply couldn’t carry a program. Undeterred, Gentry became the first woman to host her own show on the BBC—where she was denied credit as co-producer.
We may never know the final straw in the disintegrating relationship between Capitol and Gentry but after Fancy, Gentry made one final record—which includes an explicit farewell to the industry—abruptly cut all ties to the record business, and headed to Las Vegas to reinvent herself once again.
Though Gentry’s Vegas period is mostly forgotten, it was more than twice as long as her Capitol career and arguably even more successful. Gentry’s elaborate stage productions broke records for earnings and attendance.
In the early 1980s, Gentry managed one seemingly final act of reinvention when she vanished from the public eye altogether without ceremony or announcement.
We never did get to see the “Fancy” screenplay she co-wrote, or the Christmas play, or the project about homelessness she mentioned to family in the 1980s.
Gentry just never appeared or performed in public again.
It’s ironic that “Fancy” was the highlight of the 2019 CMA awards show meant to celebrate legendary women in country music, because Bobbie Gentry wrote “Fancy” as a cynical commentary on her experiences as a woman navigating the male-dominated music business, according to former colleagues I interviewed while researching Ode to Billie Joe, my book that tells the story of Bobbie Gentry’s career through the prism of her debut record.
“‘Fancy’ is my biggest statement for women’s lib, if you really listen to it,” Gentry told After Dark magazine in 1974. “I agree wholeheartedly with that movement and all the serious issues that they stand for—equality, equal pay, daycare centers, and abortion rights.”
Once Gentry was completely in charge, she used her stage show to expand lyrical meditations on women and work and more deeply engage and subvert societal ideas about gender and class. On stage, she performed exaggerated representations of femininity to expose it as a social construct in a way not unlike what Dolly Parton does with her persona. She’d come out on stage swinging around a stripper pole inside a gilded birdcage for one number then perform in drag as Elvis Presley the next. For her Elvis homage, Gentry would wear a sparkling white pantsuit and slicked-back hair to perform a whiplash medley of Elvis songs, strutting across the stage with exaggerated masculine swagger, hair coiffed into a pompadour, painted lips pulled back a snarl.
Never afraid of scandal, Gentry doubled down on the salacious plotline of “Fancy” by instructing the band to play a few bars of “House of the Rising Sun,” the blues song about a New Orleans brothel, as a prologue to “Fancy.”
She also added a coda. The music would swell a key higher to ramp up tension after the final line in the recorded version. Then Bobbie, in Fancy’s signature slinky red gown, would toss a boa over her shoulder and belt, “If I did it again, I’d do it the same! My name is Fancy, and I’m not ashamed! My name is Fancy!”
Gentry sauntered off stage with her head high, hips swinging like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. As she exited the stage, all the audience could see was one final bullwhip snap of her boa before the stage went black.
The thing about subversive art is that contains a secret message that stirs echoes within a select few.
While the mainstream industry can see itself reflected in the way “Fancy” flaunts the American dream of self-made material success—that is, after all, the story they sell to artists and audiences—outsiders instinctively understand that it’s Fancy’s response to her circumstances, her unapologetic transgression and defiant joy, that is the center of the song.
“I think it resonates with anybody who’s ever felt suppressed by their circumstances,” says Orville Peck, the queer country crooner known for maintaining anonymity by donning a series of fringed masks ranging in vibe from the Lone Ranger to something delightfully kinkier. “It’s almost like if ‘Fancy’ had to be told through a story now, it could just as easily be told through the tale of a trans kid in Harlem or a small town in the South.”
Peck, a “Fancy” fan since the first time he heard Reba sing it on the radio when he was around 12 years old, started playing it live last year.
Orville Peck performs “Fancy” in Brooklyn, 2019
Recently, he announced he recorded the track and will be releasing it on his forthcoming Show Pony EP, out August 14.
“Fancy” feels like a natural fit for Peck, a former indie-rock drummer whose persona echoes the classic singing cowboy of yore, except now it’s 2020 and this lone gay rider is scanning the frontier searching for home in a genre burstingwith queer talent who, all too often, remain marginalized.
Like Reba, Peck thought about “Fancy” a long time before finally doing it. He wondered if he had the artistic right to sing it and worried about whether he should change the pronouns.
“I have massive respect for the history of country music … [and] a huge affinity at a very young age for a lot of the female voices in country because they wrote from more a marginalized place than a lot of the male writers, at least in that era,” says Peck.
Eventually, Peck decided to honor and deepen the song’s subversive powers by changing one word.
In the original lyrics, Fancy looks in the mirror after putting on the red satin dancing dress her mother bought for her and sees a woman where “a half-grown kid had stood.”
“I say, ‘staring back from the looking glass stood a woman where a half-grown boy had stood’ because I defiantly try to make it equivalent of what I think Fancy’s story might have been in this day and age,” says Peck, shifting the character’s transformational journey from escaping poverty to one of a transgender or gender-nonconforming person finding their true gender expression. “It’s still about the ongoing struggle of people being suppressed by their circumstances.”
Peck’s homage to “Fancy” arrives amid an ongoing re-assessment of Bobbie Gentry’s trailblazing career. In addition to my work and the box set, which sold its first run out immediately, Gentry’s BBC performances were compiled for a special Record Store Day release in 2018, the same year indie-rock band Mercury Rev released a tribute album called The Delta Sweete Revisited.
Even more treats are on the way: A remastered and deluxe edition of Gentry’s original The Delta Sweete will be released on July 31.
The overdue recognition of artists like Gentry coincides with a powerful movement.
Led by women, queer musicians, and Black performers, both artists and fans are speaking out and demanding equal opportunities in country music. They’re calling on the country music establishment to face its sexist, homophobic, and racist history—and changing country music and American culture with it.
At its heart, that’s what “Fancy” is all about: transformation.
Before sending her out into the world to survive on her own, Fancy’s mother gave her a locket inscribed with “To Thine Own Self Be True.”
That message, in turn, is what Bobbie Gentry gave to us—the inspiration to write our own story—self-righteous hypocrites be damned.
This story is dedicated to Don Bradburn, Bobbie Gentry’s longtime collaborator and choreographer. Rest in peace, Don.
Visual artist Jesse Draxler—who has worked with Nine Inch Nails, Daughters, Zola Jesus, Alexander McQueen and many others—has put together a new collaborative art project with the likes of Chelsea Wolfe, Greg Puciato, Trentemøller, Jaye Jayle, Ghostemane and more, called Reigning Cement.
Draxler gave each of his co-creators a set of 34 soundscape elements to assemble in any way they wanted. These recordings are industrial noises found in Draxler’s LA neighborhood and each artist was given the very same sonic toolbox to work with. Concurrently, Draxler created a visual component to go along with each of the tracks, which are incredibly varied. Reigning Cement pairs a 100-page book of Draxler’s art, photography and collage work with the audio portion of the project (see below for flipbook video).
Today we’re premiering the music video for Chelsea Wolfe & Ben Chisholm’s contribution to Reining Cement, a song titled “Valerian.”
Draxler comments:
“When submitting this track, Chelsea briefly mentioned how the lyrics are an ode to her relationship with Valerian root and its effects on sleeping habits and insomnia. With the video we wanted to echo this notion to create a morphing and echoing sleep-scape, straddling the line between dream and nightmare. The video was created by myself and Rizz (of the band VOWWS), while the footage of Chelsea was kindly given to us by herself”
Reigning Cement is released on Draxler’s Federal Prisoner label, on September 4, 2020.
Above, the video for “Valerian” by Chelsea Wolfe & Ben Chisholm.
Exploited Body’s track, “Your Stoic Gaze Changes States Of Matter,” provides the soundtrack for a flip-through of the ‘Reigning Cement’ book.
As we told you last month, Third Man Records is about to unleash the last show ever played by the original lineup of the Stooges. Live at Goose Lake: August 8th, 1970 will be released on LP and CD on August 8th, 50 years to the day the gig took place. Tapes labeled “Goose Lake” were recently discovered in a Michigan farmhouse, and it turns out they contained the legendary Stooges gig, which was a soundboard recording, to boot. Not only that, Live at Goose Lake shatters a widely held myth surrounding the show.
For years, Stooges frontman Iggy Pop has said that bassist Dave Alexander was fired following the Goose Lake Festival gig after he “froze” on stage and didn’t play a note, an account at least one other band member corroborated. As the story goes, Alexander was so nervous before the Stooges’ set—which would be in front a massive crowd of more than 200,000—that he got drunk, smoked a ton of hash, and snorted an unknown substance, rendering him incapacitated by showtime. Circulating video of a two-minute clip of the band playing “1970 (I Feel Alright),” seems to support this, since no bass can be heard, and there aren’t any clear shots of Alexander, as the footage is edited to largely focus on Iggy. Although Alexander is indeed missing in action for a good chunk of “1970,” he can be heard during the song on the Live at Goose Lake recording, and is audible on every track on the disc. Alexander’s instrument does come and go, though, so it’s possible he did stop playing now and then, and that’s what Iggy—himself out of his mind on drugs—noticed during the show.
Photo: Charlie Auringer
At the time of the Goose Lake appearance, the Stooges’ second album, the indispensable Fun House, was about to come out. The band’s setlist mirrors the order of the LP, except “Down on the Street” and “Loose” are flipped (the record company suits thought the former was a stronger opener).
Dangerous Minds is thrilled to present an exclusive preview of Live at Goose Lake: August 8th, 1970, an absolutely incredible, mind-blowing version of “Fun House.” As on the Fun House LP, the group is joined by saxophonist Steve Mackay for the number, which, incidentally, begins with Dave Alexander’s bass line.
Hey, do you know about the Beat? They’re the great power pop band led by Paul Collins, who was in another great power pop group, the Nerves. I’m particularly fond of the Beat’s 1979 self-titled debut, which is just a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll record, front-to-back. Seriously, every song on it sounds like a hit, though, alas, in the States, at least, none of them were. The Beat were better received in Europe, with the band first touring the continent in the spring of 1980. In an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming autobiography, Paul Collins recounts the Beat’s 1980 European tour—one of drink, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
But first, a little more background.
The ‘80s began on a high note for the Beat, with the group taping an appearance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in February. But this was followed by a disheartening tour opening for the Jam, in which they weren’t even allowed to meet the band. They also learned that Columbia had no intention of getting behind their music; pushing Billy Joel’s Glass Houses was the label’s priority that year. Some good news came when Columbia’s International Department offered to bring the Beat across the pond for a European jaunt, offering full tour support. Soon, the band were flying to Paris to begin the outing.
FYI: In Europe they were known as “Paul Collins’ Beat,” as there was a UK band also called the Beat. In addition to Collins, the lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist, the members of the Beat were Steve Huff, bassist; Larry Whitman, lead guitarist; and Mike Ruiz, drummer. Their road manager, Kevin Burns (“K.B.”), also comes up in the excerpt.
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On the evening of March 29th 1980, we arrived at the Orly Airport in Paris. Our guide, a guy named Andre, hardly spoke English, but he was hysterical, and we had great fun with him. Back at the hotel, despite being very tired, I couldn’t fall asleep.
The next morning, I was really spaced out. I had to get my shit together, but there were no drugs, not even a joint. What would I wear for the first gig? I decided to be cool and downplay it, by not dressing up. A jacket, t-shirt, and jeans would do.
Photo: Catherine Sebastian
After breakfast, we were off to the Pavillon Baltard, a fairly large auditorium that held about 800 kids. We were playing with eight other bands, and immediately, we were all on ‘drug recon,’ looking for anything to get high on. We checked out a couple of ska bands, and I met a photographer, who introduced me to a guy from one of the other bands. Finally, we went to the boy’s room and I smoked my first joint in Paris. Ahh… it was great!
A little later, Larry and I were in a tavern around the corner, listening to French rock ‘n’ roll on the jukebox. We met up with some reps from CBS International, named Suzy and Jon-Jacque. We met two crazy American chicks, Jon-Jacque’s friends, and one of them had a huge block of hash. She told me to keep it! Now we had enough hash for the whole trip, and my voice was getting pretty shot.
It was show time, and Steve and I were having trouble tuning our guitars. We were getting worried, until we realized we were a whole key up! I hoped we wouldn’t get booed off stage, but thank god for rock ‘n’ roll. The kids dug us and we got the first encore of the day. Europe here we come!
What have you been doing during the COVID-19 Lockdown?
Binging on boxsets? Drinking too much? Self-medicating? Finding all your good clothes have shrunk from lack of wear?
All of the above?
George Miller spent his time lockdown making a set of beautiful marionettes featuring some of the biggest stars of rock ‘n’ roll, country, and R&B.
Miller is a Glasgow-based artist, singer, musician and iconic pop figure who’s better known as the front man to the legendary Kaisers and more recently the New Piccadillys. I’ve known Miller a long, long time. Well, since he dressed like a rocker in a black leather jacket and sported a quiff like a zeppelin, combed back like a barrel most surfers would die for. Something like that, though memory is fickle.
Since then, Miller sang and played guitar with the Styng-Rites (“We got on telly once, made the independent top 20 once, got in the music papers a bit, built a cult following and gigged ourselves to exhaustion.”); played guitar with Eugene Reynolds’ band Planet Pop; then gigged with the Revillos and Jayne County and the Electric Chairs.
In 1993, Miller formed the Kaisers:
“We ended up making six albums and a bunch of 45s, toured the USA twice, Japan once and gigged all over Europe. We did John Peel and Mark Radcliffe sessions amongst others and got on the telly a few times. I think we lasted about seven years and everything we earned just about covered the bar bill.”
Most recently, Miller was involved with the New Piccadillys, worked with Sharleen Spiteri, then toured and recorded with Los Straitjackets across America. About five years ago, the Kaisers reformed due to public demand and will be releasing a new album in the fall—more on that another time.
George Miller: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Band.
I reconnected with Miller through social media. Over the past few months, he would post a photograph of his latest marionette in progress. Sculpting heads of rock stars like Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly or country greats like Johnny Cash. They were beautiful, fabulous models, which were then dressed by Ursula Cleary and placed in boxes designed by Chris Taylor.
How did these marionettes come about?
George Miller: I’d been working on a BBC children’s drama for a few weeks (I’m a freelance Production Designer, gawd help me) and as lockdown was approaching, production stopped so I went from super busy to completely idle pretty much overnight.
I’d made some marionettes for a video a few years earlier and since then had been toying with the idea of making one of Link Wray but never seemed to have the time, so lockdown seemed the ideal opportunity. I liked the notion of spending time making something that had no ultimate purpose other than self amusement and no deadline for completion. With his outfit made by my partner Ursula, Link turned out pretty satisfactorily but after a few days I got the itch again, so I got to work on Bo Diddley, another guitar favorite of mine. Bo gave me a bit of trouble and the first attempt went in the bin. Realizing I’d tried to rush it, I reverted to lockdown pace, which I’ve employed ever since.
Why did you choose the classic rock ‘n’ roll, R’n'B icons?
GM: I wouldn’t call myself a musical luddite, but nothing has ever thrilled me more than a good rock ‘n’ roll record, so I decided to keep making favorites from the 1950s until my day job resumed. Although a couple of the subjects are still with us, the notion of “resurrecting” the others in some way appealed to me. I like seeing them bursting out of their “coffins.” It’s also a way of expressing my fascination with these people and the music they made. If I start to run out of subjects, I’ll move forward in time, but I doubt I’ll go past 1965 as the joy goes out of it a bit for me around then.
Maybe I’ll fast forward—Joey Ramone would be a good subject.
Where did the boxes for the marionettes come from?
GM: When I posted a photo of the Buddy Holly puppet, a Facebook friend by the name of Chris Taylor sent me a mock-up of a box label with a great illustration and excellent graphics. Chris got me thinking that this could be a “proper” project and we’ve been working together on ideas for an exhibition and a range of merchandise, as the marionettes have been developing a bit of a virtual fan base online. Chris’s illustrations have a great deal of style and though instantly recognizable, they have their own identity, which complements the puppets which are more rigidly representational. It reminds me of opening a box to find that the toy inside looks different to the illustration, something that always registered with me as a child. Chris’s work has definitely steered things in the direction of an art project, albeit with the (for now) all-important absence of deadline.
Where can we buy these Kaiser George Marionettes?
GM: The marionettes are one-offs and aren’t for sale as they take so long to make. I wouldn’t want to sculpt any of them twice, though mould making could be an option. As someone commented on Facebook, it would be a bit like selling your children. Chris and I are working on a set of bubblegum cards which will be for sale and we’re unashamedly excited about it. Second childhood? Definitely.
KGM Trading Cards.
What other plans do you have for your rock ‘n’ roll children?
GM: When the “cast” of puppets grows to 20 or so, I’m planning on making a video showcasing their individual musical styles plus a series of short clips based on the photographs of Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran passing time in the dressing room of the Glasgow Empire theater. I quite like the idea of two marionettes in a small room not doing very much, just idle movements.
Now, if I was an enterprising businessman, I would certainly be thinking of investing in mass marketing these to-die-for Kaiser George Marionettes. You know you sure as hell want one. And damned if I wouldn’t be collecting all those trading cards too.
See more of George’s Marvellous Marionettes, after the jump…
Beyond the Pale, the new album by Jarvis Cocker’s group Jarv Is… is out now and the former Pulp frontman has opted for an innovative video promotion for it that doesn’t involve touring. He was aided in this cause by directors Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard—co-directors of the great Nick Cave documentary, 20,000 days on Earth—who shot the group live at Peak Cavern, Derbyshire. The film premieres tomorrow on YouTube at 8pm BST (that’s 3pm EST, noon if you’re on the west coast) and you’ll have 24 hours to watch it before it disappears.
Cocker posted on YouTube:
Beyond the Pale was written (& partially recorded) in front of a live audience, so it feels extra-strange not to be able to take it on the road at the moment. Fortunately, our friends Iain & Jane suggested a way round the problem: set up our equipment in a cave & they would film the results. We have invented a new way of playing a concert.
Backing Jarvis Cocker during the program are Serafina Steer, Emma Smith, Andrew McKinney, Jason Buckle, Adam Betts and Naala. There’s a trailer for the concert below. Once it’s live you can view it here.
